A Not So Sweet Escape
by pierrotz
Summary: Sakura longs for a way to escape paperwork, and instead gets transferred to Suna to train MedicNins, where she once again must face Sabaku No Gaara. GaaSaku in future chapters.
1. Paperwork

Disclaimer: This is my first fanfic so be gentle with me! So I guess this is just gonna be a short one so don't expect too much from it at first. I might add more chapters later on, we'll see how it goes. Chapter One will be fairly short.

Reviews are very much appreciated!!

Ah yes almost forgot; **I DON'T OWN NARUTO.** (and never will)

Pairings? (heehee.)

Rating: T (for now)

We all know Sakura has a lovely inner voice.

Inner Voice will be in bold.

Thoughts will be in italics.

Might be a bit OOC. Forgive me.

A Not So Sweet Escape – Chapter 1 Paperwork

Sakura tucked a loose strand of pink hair behind her ear. She stared down at the hospital paperwork with a cold glare and grumbled.

"I can't believe Shisshou is making me do this!" She huffed.

She was right too. Sakura Haruno had been appointed Jounin six months prior, and she did not want to spend her month off missions doing hospital paperwork in a dim backroom of the Konoha Hospital. Sakura sighed. She had hoped that she would be able to skip such mediocre tasks once she became Jounin.

"_This is a job for nurses…"_ she thought bitterly.

She had wanted to gain recognition as a skilled Konoha shinobi, not as Tsunade's lapdog (no offence meant to Shizune). Being the weakest link in a team of some of the strongest ninjas Konoha had ever seen made her strive for bigger, better things. She had trained hard and spent long hours studying to achieve the status she had only ever dreamed of. Reaching Tsunade's level as a medic-nin, maybe even surpassing her. Becoming a Jounin. Hell, even buying her own apartment flat! All things Sakura could've only dreamed of as the small, weak member of team 7.

She supposed Konoha still thought her to be small, weak Sakura-Chan. After all, Naruto was ONLY the Kyuubi, and Sasuke, ONLY one of the most powerful missing-nins from Konoha. She grumbled again, scratching out mistakes nurses had made on patient records.

"_Sasuke…"_

She had long overcome her childhood crush for him, but that didn't stop her mind wandering to him now and then. They had been friends. She knew deep down he wouldn't be the same boy she knew in her genin days.

"**Not like he had been **_**that**_** great."** Her inner voice mused.

"…_Shut up."_

She couldn't help wondering if the next time she'd see him, it would be Naruto bringing him back to Konoha, or perhaps killed by Konoha Hunter-nins. Or maybe-

"_Stop thinking about stupid possibilities," _Sakura thought, cutting herself off, _"It doesn't make anything better."_

She sighed. If Sasuke ever did come back she didn't know how she would react. Would she be relieved that he was back? Angry with him for leaving. Embarrassment came to mind as well.

"_He left me on a bench, that bastard!" _Sakura's famous temper rose up…

"**Like I said, not that great."**

"…_hmmpf." _And then it was gone.

Not wanting to dwell on thoughts of Sasuke any longer she went back to longing for an escape from the piles of paperwork that lay in front of her.

Little did she know, an escape was on its way. A little trip not so far away from Konoha.


	2. Long Talks and Broken Rocks

Chapter 2 – An Unexpected Mission Thank you to Airi-hime, shatteredXimagination and missladylaura for the reviews, I'm sorry for not updating but thank you for reading it anyways :)I don't own Naruto! (A/N at the bottom, and again, I'm sorry for not updating) Long Talks and Broken Rocks

Sakura pushed open the door to Tsunade's hospital office grunting and mumbling to herself. It had taken her the good part of the night to finish the paperwork, not to mention Tsunade wanted it finished by 8 am, and she was exhausted.

The Hokage jerked up in her seat from behind her desk as Sakura approached, "Ah! Sakura, got all that paperwork done I see."

Sakura grunted and dropped the papers onto her sensei's desk.

"So glad you could help me out, I've been so busy you know, all this trouble with the Akatsuki and that Uchiha boy. And paperwork, oh, the paperwork…" She rambled on attempting to cover something on her desk with her enormous bust.

Unbeknownst to Tsunade, Sakura had already made her way around the desk and was now glaring down at several small glossy sheets of paper on her former sensei's desk.

"Tsunade-Shisshou." Sakura said in the sweetest voice she could manage.

Tsunade swallowed and avoided eye contact with Sakura while rambling on about missions and the Council.

"Tsunade-Shisshou." Sakura repeated.

"Yes, Sakura?" Tsunade knew what was coming next. _"Shit."_

"You had me help you do paperwork correct? _Help_ you. Meaning you actually did _some_, right?"

Tsunade could feel Sakura glaring into the back of her head.

"Depends what you mean by _some_ Sakura-Chan." The Hokage hoped using "-chan" would soften what was to come next.

"Not gonna work, Shisshou."

"_Damn."_

"From what I'm seeing here," Sakura picked up on of the small sheets, that wasn't currently being poorly hidden by Tsunade, "while I was painstakingly finishing your paperwork all last night, you were playing FUCKING SCRATCH CARDS!?"

She slammed the sheet down onto the desk creating a small dent from the force.

"Listen Sakura, being Hokage is hard you know! Sorry…" Tsunade mumbled out.

" I can't believe I spent the whole night doing YOUR paperwork! I'm taking the day off!" Sakura stormed out.

"Go ahead!" The Hokage attempted a wave and smile. Sakura had already left and Tsunade could hear her cursing and stomping away.

A sigh escaped Tsunade's lips. "She really does take after me." She looked down at the scratch cards. _"And I didn't even win!"_

Sakura was still grumbling as she left the hospital. She knew she should probably apologize to the Hokage but right not she was too busy plotting Tsunade's demise.

"**She thinks she can just throw all of her paperwork onto ME? No one messes with Inner Sakura Haruno and gets away with it!"** Inner Sakura proclaimed angrily.

She knew that she would never actually harm Tsunade in anyway and she needed another way to get her anger out. One thought came to mind. Sakura smiled devilishly and made her way to the training grounds.

Kakashi had never seen Sakura so intent on pulverizing boulders before. He watched her completely and utterly destroy boulder after boulder with her bare fists. Kakashi examined the rubble surrounding her and came to the conclusion that something had severely pissed Sakura off (He was betting on Sai), and she had been punching rocks for the past hour or two. He sighed. He really didn't know where all this strength came from. Of course being the apprentice to Tsunade was one thing, but really, how come she hadn't shown this much power in her genin days? Kakashi sighed again. He knew precisely why.

He wasn't exactly the best teacher to her. In fact he was downright ignorant to the fact she was even there. He was so busy fussing over Sasuke and Naruto he had given her practically no one-on-one training. She had been the weak one. The one who needed rescuing. Well, not anymore. Sakura had managed to make a name for herself. She wasn't weak. She didn't need rescuing. Not in the way Kakashi originally thought anyways.

He saw the way Sakura pounded boulder after boulder, a frustrated expression on her face and a gleam in her eye. He also saw the cuts and gashes running up and down her arms and legs.

"Yo, Sakura-chan!" Kakashi called out to her

Sakura swiftly turned around and saw Kakashi standing at the edge of the training grounds. She waved to him and turned back to her boulder- well it used to be a boulder. There wasn't anything left. She surveyed her surroundings and quickly discovered that there were in fact, no boulders left. All she could see was rubble.

"Oh My…" Sakura breathed out. _"How did this happen?"_ She vaguely remembered letting Inner Sakura take over and didn't remember much after that.

Kakashi had now made his way over to where Sakura was standing surrounded by rubble busying himself with kicking bits off rock out of his way until Sakura was ready to respond normally. For now he let her stand in the centre of all the destruction slightly panting and looking around in apparent confusion. He chuckled and Sakura looked over her shoulder at him and gave him a small smile.

"Ne, Kaka-Sensei, what are you doing here? You can't have come here to train…I mean, I kind of ruined the training grounds." Sakura scratched her head and smiled wider.

"I actually came to see how you were doing Sakura-chan." Kakashi said, beckoning Sakura to move away from the rubble, "Kotetsu told me he saw you marching out of Tsunade's office rather angrily. So, you gonna tell me what happened?"

Sakura gave the smallest of blushes. "Well its not that exciting of a story…"

"I've got time!" Kakashi's visible eye crinkled. Sakura grinned back. 

A Little While Later… 

Maybe it wasn't the greatest idea to let Sakura tell her story. It seemed to Kakashi she had a lot of frustration to get out. A LOT. In fact he was sure that most of what she was saying had nothing to do with what happened with Tsunade this afternoon. Something to do with Ino and a shopping incident involving her whole wardrobe and coffee stains.

After another twenty minutes, Sakura was finishing off her rant to a stunned Kakashi who was currently wonder how a woman could change her moods so quickly. Sakura had successfully gone through at least ten different moods in the past twenty minutes.

"And I still can't believe she made ME do HER paperwork! I mean, come on! Its not hard! Well actually it was, and I know because I DID IT. And she still won't send me on any more missions this month! My break ended a couple days ago, ya think she would send me off now but nooooo!" Sakura scrunched up her face and attempted a Tsunade impersonation, "Sakura! Do MY paperwork! Nya Nya Nya!" 

Kakashi couldn't help but laugh at Sakura's Tsunade impersonation.

"What are you laughing about huh?" Sakura asked heatedly.

Kakashi grinned beneath his mask. "Sakura, you are one of a kind. I'm sure Tsunade will send you on a mission soon enough, and you got today off right?"

"I doubt she'll send me on a mission Kakashi-sensei," Sakura sighed and held up her hands and made quotations, "I'm a valuable asset to Konoha's hospital and it would benefit the village if I took myself off the active duty roster." She rolled her eyes and shrugged, "Besides it's been slow lately, everything's well, peaceful."

Kakashi couldn't help but agree. After winning the battle against Akatsuki, everything had been quieter. However, Sasuke was still missing in action but even news on him was scarce.

Kakashi looked at Sakura, who had went back to staring at the ruined training ground, a dull look in her eyes. Kakashi knew what he had to do; he would take it upon himself to get Sakura a break from Konoha, it was the least he could do for her.

The two said their goodbyes and parted ways, Sakura going to catch up on some much needed rest and Kakashi finding himself in Tsunade's office…

Through the window of course. "Yo!" Kakashi leaped through the window behind Tsunade.

"HOW HARD IS IT FOR YOU TO WALK THROUGH THE GODDAMN DOOR!?" Tsunade was furious. Sakura had left her to do her own paperwork, she couldn't really complain, but taking it out on Kakashi gave her something to yell about.

Kakashi gave a customary salute, "Bad day I see? Not due to Sakura-chan I hope?"

Tsunade sighed, "How is she? I've been meaning to call her back here, there's a mission for her specifically."

"Oh! That makes my job much easier!" Kakashi's eye crinkled at Tsunade's confused face, "I was under the impression that I would have to grovel for you to give Sakura-chan a mission. She really needs to get away you know."

"Hm well I wouldn't mind seeing you grovel anyway…but, lucky Sakura! She has won herself an extended stay in Sunagakure courtesy of the Kazekage."

Kakashi frowned "The Kazekage specifically requested her?"

"You know how kids are, they make friends all over the place, pen pals if you will."

"The Kazekage, as in Gaara the psychopathic killer, is Sakura's _pen pal_?"'

"Kakashi, you know as well as I do he's changed for the better. And yes they are pen pals, Sakura likes to know what's going on with the Suna Siblings and Gaara- well, I don't really know why Gaara responds." Tsunade shrugged then slowly grinned, "Maybe he likes her…Oh, I can already see the wedding bells ringing!

A slightly disturbed Kakashi decided to take his leave then, leaving Tsunade in her fantasy, "Don't forget to tell Sakura, uh, about her upcoming mission. Later…"

Tsunade was left alone to her giggling…and her still unfinished paperwork.

"Damn, forgot about that."

**A/N: **Hi guys! Sorry its been literally over a year since I've updated!! IM SORRY PLEASE FORGIVE ME. It was an incredibly busy year, I was travelling all over the place and was completely trapped by my insane school, which is filled to the brim with overachievers (like me), but here we go the second chapter!! And I have some one' shots I'm going to write so no worries, I'll give you something to read while you wait for my lazy ass to update.

I hope everyone had a happy July, cause its August tomorrow! :)


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